Leaving Las Vegas

You can’t go back.

Last week I found myself at a Global Marketing Summit for the cybersecurity company I work for. It was four glorious days and three nights of seminars, eating, lectures, eating, planning, eating, socializing with colleagues, and, say it with me, eating.

There also happened to be craps and blackjack involved, because the summit was held in this little desert rat-trap town that Bugsy Siegel started, Meyer Lansky financed, the Rat Pack sang in and Moe Green—who doesn’t have so much as a plaque—died in: Las Vegas.

As some of my loyal readers will recall (trying to stop laughing at the thought I have “loyal readers”), I’ve written here in the past about how much I used to love Vegas. “Used to” being the operative phrase.

For a lot of years, I’d go four and five times a year to visit the money I’d left behind and see how the Jeff wing of the Venetian was coming along. There was nothing like the adrenaline rush and excitement I used to feel once I landed and was on the way to my hotel. This time, my first Vegas trip in about eight years, that rush was replaced by sadness.

The Vegas strip still photographs well, but if you look closer you see the town, with its out of control development, sad faux showgirls hawking pictures of themselves with you, the mix of well-to-do visitors sidestepping the homeless, and the general low-rent traveling carnival vibe have made it all a lot less glamourous than the brochure.

It was a far cry from the town where I played $5 and $10 minimums at the tables, saw Tony Bennett at the Flamingo, Sigfried & Roy (before) at the Mirage, Danny Gans (RIP) at Caesar’s, Penn & Teller at the Rio, Jerry Seinfeld at the Thomas & Mack Center, Bruce Springsteen (I know, I’m as surprised as you are) at the MGM Grand Garden, and Cirque du Soleil everywhere.

This trip, with the exception of one outing, I was pretty much sequestered at my summit in the dark, unwelcoming, chemical fragrance infused Cosmopolitan Hotel & Casino. My room was on the 49th floor, which made me a little jittery. But then I realized there were still twelve floors above me, so in my head I was on a lower floor.

Having said all that, Vegas is still a town you should see once if you’ve never been.

But I think I’m good for another eight years. Unless they lower the table minimums.

The back room

A few years ago, for about nine months, I had the good fortune to work at FCB in San Francisco. It was a fun, jet-setting kind of gig because I had to commute back and forth from Santa Monica, where I was living at the time. I’d leave Monday morning, and fly back Friday night. Racked up lots of frequent flyer miles, and also got to know a lot of the airport personnel by name. Thank you for the free upgrades.

That was the good news.

The bad news is it was on Taco Bell.

If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time – and if you have, thank you, but you really need to spend more time outside – you may remember I wrote here about my time up north. One thing I happened to leave out was the night I went looking for trouble.

Normally, trouble usually has no trouble finding me. But on this night, I decided to act on something I’d heard. I don’t remember if it was in a noir motion picture from the fifties that took place in San Francisco, or whether the concierge at the hotel had mentioned it to me in passing. I'd heard there were all sorts of backroom crap games in Chinatown, and I was setting out to find myself one.

I also don't remember where I heard this little tidbit: the best way to find one was ask one of the many Asian cab drivers.

So, very late in the evening, I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to Chinatown. When we got near it, he asked for the exact address, and I told him I didn't have one. I wanted to be taken to a crap game.

He laughed, shook his head and told me there weren’t any. By the way he said it, I could tell I’d struck gold with this driver.

I told him not only did I know there were, but I knew that he knew where they were. I was insistent he take me to one of them. After a lot of back and forth, denial and more denial, he finally said he did know of one. But he wasn’t going to take me there.

When I asked why, he said because the games were closed to outsiders, especially Caucasians, and if I went into one I might not come out.

Even if I didn't hear about them in a movie, it was beginning to sound like one.

You know how seeing a police car in the rear-view mirror after you’ve had a couple beers sobers you right up? That’s how fast I lost my desire to play in a back-room crap game.

He took me back to the hotel, where I tipped him generously and thanked him for being so honest with me.

He said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Shut up and roll

It’s that time of year again. The weather’s getting cooler (not counting the record-setting 113 degree day last week). Kids are back in school. The holidays are just around the corner. And I’m counting the days until my annual trip to SEMA in Las Vegas.

SEMA is the Specialty Equipment Market Association convention held every November at the Vegas convention center. It’s over a million square feet of intricately tricked out cars, vintage hot rods, customized paint jobs, ear-shattering tuners, chrome wheels, smiling car show models and auto executives frantically networking and handing out resumes (I don’t know if you heard, it’s been a tough couple years for those boys). At SEMA, it’s all about automotive aftermarket products and equipment.

That’s not what it’s about for me. For me, it’s about Vegas.

I have a confession to make. I love that town, and not in the nice-place-to-visit or once-a-year-is-enough kind of way. I mean really love it. Beyond reason. I’ve said this in another post, but it bears repeating here: Vegas is the only place I know where everything you hear about it, good or bad, is true.

Even if you don’t gamble, there’s still a great time to be had. Cheap (relatively) hotel rooms, great spas, amazing restaurants, headline acts, first-class shows – many of them without tigers. You can have a great time without having to spend one hard-earned cent gambling.

Of course, why you’d want to do it that way is beyond me.

Every year I go to SEMA with my friend Pete who used to be my client on a car account I worked on. He's one of my best friends, and we always have a great time. Here’s the ritual: we go to the show, walk the floor, see what’s new, catch up with his friends in the industry.  We have dinner at Circo at the Bellagio. I call my wife. Then we go to the crap tables.

Or I should say I go to the crap tables.

The tables are where Pete and I part ways philosophically. Apparently he just doesn’t enjoy having watered-down drinks brought to him non-stop while risking large sums of money on a roll of the dice. And not just my roll of the dice, but everyone else that gets to be the shooter as well.

So while Pete does whatever he does while I’m playing (and I believe what he does is humor me), I have a great time rolling the bones. I don’t even know how to describe it. What’s that? Sick? Compulsive? Not really. Just fun.

I play for a while. I set a limit. I have a system.

My system is this: I play until I’m out of money. Then I go to the ATM and get more money. Then I play some more. Say what you will, but that damn ATM pays out every time.

Eventually I start feeling bad for ditching Pete while I’m playing craps, and I leave the table to find him. We’ll have a drink, talk about the day’s events, make plans for the next day at the show. I call my wife. He goes back to his room. And I go back to the tables for a couple more hours.

Oh yeah Pete, like you didn’t know.

When I’m not in Vegas, I love talking about it to anyone who’ll listen. Especially if they feel the same way I do. I had lunch today with my friend Laura. I've worked with her at two agencies, yet didn't realize until today what kindred spirits we actually are. She told me about a recent trip to Vegas with some friends of hers. She had me at, “God I love it there."

Sadly not everyone I've gone with has felt that way. I’ve been there - usually on a business trip - with people who absolutely hate the place. Oddly enough, every time one of those people is tapping their foot impatiently, constantly checking their watch and staring at me while I’m playing craps, I lose. Then when they leave, I start winning. There’s only one logical conclusion you can come to with this information.

The Vegas table gods know who likes them and who doesn’t.

One of the best accounts I ever worked on was The Reserve Hotel & Casino in Henderson, just outside Vegas. It was great for many reasons, especially the trips to present work to the client. We saw the casino being built, watched them install  the slots, and saw the tables brought in. We were there for the fireworks-filled grand opening. I played craps with all of my agency pals, who were just as excited as I was. And we all won.

Remember the part about the Vegas table gods?

As I read this post, I occurs to me that it might be easy to get the idea I have a gambling problem. I don’t. The truth is I enjoy it when I’m there, but do realize there is a real life, and real expenses, to come back to. I don’t go expecting to win. That way when I do, it’s a nice surprise. Don’t worry about me. My savings accounts are intact, the bills get paid, and the kid’s college accounts remain untouched.

The real truth of the matter is I wouldn’t go to Vegas as often as I want even if I could.

It wouldn’t leave me any time for the track.